KASDI MERBAH UNIVERSITY – OUARGLA

Faculty of Lettres and Languages

Department of English Language and Literature

Dissertation

Academic Master

Domain: Letters and Foreign Languages

Specialty: Anglo-Saxon Literature

Submitted by: Miss. BERCHAOUA Radja

Title:

Social Classes’ Differences in Charles

Dickens’ Hard Times

Publicly Defended

On: 09/06/2014

Before the Jury:

Dr. BOUSBAI Abdelaziz………………………………………….……President UKM Ouargla

Ms. BENZOUKH Halima……………………………………….…...…Supervisor UKM Ouargla

Ms. BAHRI Fouzia ….……………………………………..………...….Examiner UKM Ouargla

Academic Year: 2013/2014

 Dedication

I would like to dedicate this modest work to my dear parents, my father and my mother

for their love, patience, encouragement, and help.

This work is also dedicated to my brothers and sisters,

and to all my lovely friends specially Flora.

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 Acknowledgments

First, Thanks to The Almighty Allah Who guided me all the way.

I owe my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms. Halima Benzoukh, for her

considerable help, patience, and guidance.

I would like to thank the members of the jury; the president Dr. Abdelaziz BOUSBIA

and the examiner Ms Fouzia BAHRI, for evaluating my dissertation.

I would also like to thank all my teachers for their efforts.

My sincere thanks to all those who have helped me in doing this

research work.

II
 Abstract

The present study is an attempt to deal with the class division in British society during the
Victorian period tackling Charles Dickens‟s novel Hard Times as a case-study. It comes to show
the differences and the inequalities between the three social classes which existed in that period,
the upper, the middle and the lower classes. Also, it aims to show that Hard Times portrays the
reality of social injustice in Britain during the Victorian era. The study analysis will be done
through comparing the realities of the Victorian era with the realities that Charles Dickens
described in Hard Times. The work is divided into three chapters. The first chapter presents
general views about literature and society with its theories. The second chapter embodies
historical information about the Victorian era. The third and the last Chapter represents the
practical part of the work through the analysis of Charles Dickens‟s Hard Times.

Key Words: Social Class, Differences, Literature, Marxism, Charles Dickens, Hard Times.

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 Table of Contents

Dedication……………………………………………………………………………… I

Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………………. II

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………… III

Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………… IV

General Introduction…………………………………………………………………… 1

Chapter One

Literature and Society

Introduction ………………………………………………………………………… 7

1.1 General Views about Literature…………….…………………………………… 7

1. 2 Literary theory…………………………………….……………………………. 9

1.2.1 Orientation of Literary Theories…..…….………………………... 9

1. 2.1.1 Imitative Theory…………………….……………………… 9

1. 2.1.2. Pragmatic Theory………………….……………………...... 10

1. 2.1.3 Expressive Theory……………………….…………………. 10

1. 2.1.4 Objective Theory………………………….………………... 11

1.2.2. Marxism Theory…………....…………………….………………. 11

1.2.2.1 Marxist Literary Criticism……………………......................... 12

1. 2.2.2 Reflectionism……………………………….………………. 13

1.3 Social Class…………………………………………………….………………… 14

1.3.1 Definition of Social Class ……………………….……... ….…….. 14

1.3.2 Theories of Social Class……….…………….……………………. 15

1.3.2.1 Social Class According to Karl Marx……….……………….. 15

IV
 1.3.2.2 Social Class According to Max Weber………….…………… 15

Conclusion ………..……………………………………………………....................... 16

Chapter Two

The Victorian Age (1832-1901)

Introduction………………………………….………………......................................... 18

2.1 The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain………………………………………… 18

2.1.1 Factors Led to the Industrial Revolution…..……………………….. 18

2.1.2 Social Development after the Industrial Revolution…..……………. 19

2.2 The Victorian Era………………………………………………….………………. 19

2.2.1 Family Life……………………………………….……..................... 20

2.2.2 Working Conditions………………………………………………... 21

2.2.3 Child Labor…………………………………………….................... 22

2.3 Social classes in the Victorian Society……………………….…………………… 22

2.3.1 The Class Division……...……………………………………………… 22

2.3.1.1 The Upper Class………………………………………………... 23

2.3.1.2 Middle Class…………………………………………………… 23

2.3.1.2.1 The Rise of the Middle Class……………………………... 23

2.3.1.3 The lower class /Workers……………………............................ 24

2.4 The Victorian Literature…………………………………………………………… 24

2.4.1 The Victorian Realism………………………………………………..... 25

2.4.2 Victorian Novel…………………………………………..................... 26

2.4.1.1 Victorian Great Novelists……………………………………….. 27

2.4.2.2 The Victorian Novel Style……………………………………….. 27

Conclusion……………………………………………………........................................ 28

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 Chapter Three

The Analysis of Social Classes in Charles Dickens’ Hard Times

Introduction…………………………………………………......................................... 30

3.1 Charles Dickens as a Victorian Citizen ……………………..…….……………… 30

3.2 Charles Dickens‟ Hard Times................................................................................... 31

3.2.1 Themes………………………………………………………………… 31

3.2.2 Characters………………………………………………………………. 32

3.2.2.1.1 Major Characters…………………………………………….... 33

3.2.2.1.2 Minor Characters…………………………………………….... 34

3.2.3 The Plot Summary…………………………………................................ 34

3.4 Portraying Society through the Setting…………………………………………… 35

3.5 Portraying Social Classes‟ Differences through Characters……………………….. 36

3.5.1 The Upper Class (Mr. James Harthouse)…………............................. 37

3.5.2 The Middle Class (Mr. Josiah Bounderby)………………………….. 38

3.5.3 The Working Class (Mr. Stephen Blackpool)……………………….. 38

3.6 Dimensions in Representing Differences between Classes in Hard Times................ 39

3.6.1 Language………………………………………….............................. 39

3.6.2 Education……………………………………………………………. 40

3.6.3 Living Conditions…………………………………………………… 41

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………. 41

General Conclusion………………..……………………………. .………………….. 43

Bibliography ……..………………...………………………………………………… 46

Glossary ………………………………..……………………………………………. 51

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General Introduction
General Introduction

The mirror of life is an expression that literature called by. This expression explains the
notion of representing society through literary texts. Also, it can be considered as one among
many definitions of literature which has always been a challenge. Literature reflects good values
and lacks of society in a creative and imaginary way. Writers create stories for the sake to reflect
man's life and situations. They make that through the setting or characters in the story. Their
words and actions are means for a certain message for the reader in which they transfer their real
life into fictitious one. The inquiry of how it was life in the past may come to any human′s mind.
This inquiry can be for the purpose of education, finding out information about society or
entertainment so that the reader would refers back to the arts of the target time (Risdinato, 2012).

The function of literature is more than entertaining readers and getting them into a
world of fiction, actually it can go beyond that. In fact, literary work‟s content goes deeper and
includes a plenty of information and events that serve the different sciences such as sociology. A
literary text can be seen from many perspectives and approaches according to different points of
view. Marxists claim that a literary work is a reflection of the institutions from it originates.
Their analysis of a text based on how authors reflect realities through characters, settings, or
other aspects of the literary text (Abrams, 1971). George Lukács (1885-1971) a Marxist and a
developer of a Marxist sociology, believed that the analysis of literary devices such as repetition,
symbols, and images would absolutely show class conflict in the given setting. Luckács also
introduced the „Reflection theory‟ which assumes that a literary text reflects and reveals a
society consciousness (ibid.).

Literature is a window into the re-created realities of writer's worlds (Risdinato, 2012).
All its genres deal with human experiences, but the relationship between the individual and
society is the specialty of the novel. The novel was the winner of „The leader form of literature‟
title during the 19th century, because it is considered as one of the Victorian literary explorations.
The Victorian novelist, George Eliot, writes that “The doctrine that all truth and beauty are to be
attained by a humble and faithful study of nature, and not by substituting vague forms, bred by
imagination on the mess of feelings, in place of finite substantial reality.” (Quoted in Louis,
2006: 30), this idea may represent the belief that the Victorian novelists based their writings on,
and they sublimated literature from a work of imagination to a fiction based on realities. Reading
literary works is belonged to the great writers of the Victorian period like Charles Dickens and
George Eliot, will make the reader identify certain common characteristics belong to the era, in

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which the literary works during that period become closer to the daily life in a way they reflect
the problems that exist in society. These literary works focus on moral themes such as truth,
love, brotherhood and justice. And novels became everywhere for public. The later
characteristics were the results of the scientific discoveries and the Industrial Revolution which
happened during the reign of Victoria (1837-1901) (Louis, 2006 ).

Sociologists consider literature as a source of information about society (Corse, 2012).

They based on literature to collect the small pieces of the whole picture that reflect society.
Literary texts are considered as reflections of economics, family relationships, attitudes, religion
and social classes which compose the ingredient of a society (Albrecht, 2012). Looking for an
important element such as social classes in a certain period of time requires reading a work that
has been produced during that time (ibid.).

The romanticist's writings were based on imagination and feelings (Louis, 2006). The
pre-Victorian writers like Jane Austen were dealing with social satire and adventure (ibid.).
Whereas realists' subjects and themes were about the cultural representation of life and everyday
events (ibid.).

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is one of the Victorian significant writers and realists. His
genius style in creating stories makes his novels among the most known writings in England
(ibid.). His writings excellently exemplify the rise of Britain during the 19 th century, and it
represents a vivid picture of the Victorian society. He gets his messages across through his
criticizing writings and his use of caricatures in presenting facts. Dickens's novels deal with a
number of social issues and exemplify the problems of an industrial town in England during the
period; they also illustrate the class struggles in society (ibid.).

Charles Dickens's Hard Times (1854) is a representation of the different social classes
in the Victorian society (Ingham, 1996). Dickens portraits the living conditions, work, and
education in addition to other inequalities between characters that belong to the working, middle,
and upper classes in Coketown. Hard Times‟ setting also represented an Industrial town during
the Victorian era. It is considered as one of Dickens‟s strong criticising social works (ibid.).
Dickens tries to send a message by drawing the details of reality using.

Analysing the literary work in this study requires the analytic method in which the
literary work should be analysed clearly for illustrating the target object of the study. It requires
an adaptation of a suitable literary theory which will be the Marxist literary criticism. Thus, this

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later serves the main aim of this study. Analyzing Dickens‟s novel Hard Times from a Marxist
perspective will give a clear image about the different social classes in England during the
nineteenth century and the inequalities between them.

The present study aims at showing the way in which a specific literary text gives the
reader a clear image of the society at a specific period of time. It also aims at explaining and
pointing out a major function of literature which is mirroring society. It proves that literature is
not just a collection of fictitious stories based on imagination and written for entertaining
readers; it is based on realities and facts covered sometimes by fiction. The research work would
try to find out the social class differences in Dickens‟s Hard Times, and to show whether it
reflects a social realities from the Victorian society.

When we read a literary text whatever it is; a short story, a poem or a novel, our
consciousness will start drawing each detail in the work, and reflects each expression, setting and
character have been mentioned in the text. As any reader starts reading a piece of literature, he
gets into another world, and discovers its facts and realities. That is a main function of literature.

Literature is a record of social facts, realities, and experiences in which class division in
the Victorian society can be revealed through Dickens‟s Hard Times. This fact can be proved by
reference to historical writings.

At the end of reading a piece of literature, readers will get a clear image of society at the
time it was written. This research work aims at answering the following questions:

- What are the social classes‟ differences described by Charles Dickens in his novel Hard Times?

- Do the social classes‟ differences in Dickens‟ Hard Times reflect a social reality in the
Victorian society?

Therefore, a number of hypotheses are formulated to answer these research questions:

1- Reading the novel Hard Times gives its reader an image about the society that Charles
Dickens lived in.

2- Dickens‟ Hard Times characters represent the social classes that existed in the Victorian
society.

The present study is divided into three chapters. The first chapter is devoted to clarify
the relationship between literature and society referring to the reflection theory, and also it will

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provide some tendencies about literature in addition to a number of notions about social class.
The second chapter presents the Victorian Age and the social class inequalities in the society
during the era. It also deals with the Victorian novel and the new characteristics that it acquires
during the Victorian era in order to make it the appropriate mean in recording facts and realities.
The third chapter is the analytic study of novel Hard Times by showing the class division in the
Victorian society using the Marxist literary theory.

Finally, we hope that we would be able to reach the aim of this research which is
finding out the social class differences in Dickens‟s Hard Times in which it will shed light on a
major function of literature which is portraying social realities. We also hope that this study
would help students of English literature in their study.

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Chapter One
Literature and Society
Chapter One

Introduction

Any discussion of a literary work cannot be separated from getting the definition of
literature itself as a basic material for that discussion. From a variety of literature definitions
the reader will conclude many functions of literature. The major function is that literature
works as a mirror of society; it provides the reader with a plenty of information. Theorists
created approaches and methods to read a literary work and called them literary theories.
Marxism, as one of these literary theories deals with the literary text as a source of
information about the society that creates it.

Social class is considered as a main feature in a society. It is defined in many ways

by many sociologists. The most known two theories concerning social class were those of
Karl Marx and Max Weber (Wright, 2003).

1.1 General Views about Literature

Literature has a plenty of definitions based on a list of criteria which all literary
works must be characterized by, and the only shared characteristic between them is that it
changes from time to time and from a point of view to another one. It is not possible to decide
whether something is literature or not simply by its form or language; for instance, according
to some critiques Shakespeare‟s works have not been always considered as literature, and may
not be considered in the future (Laga, 2003). There is no single answer to the question „What
is Literature?‟ It generally means “anything that is written: time tables, dialogues, textbooks,
travel brochures and so on.” (Risdianto, 2011: 4). Written materials like historical books,
magazines, newspaper, dictionaries, novels, catalogues, plays, short stories, encyclopedias, etc
can be grouped into two types of literature. They are informative literature and imaginative
literature (ibid.). The informative literature provides us with knowledge like facts,
explanations, history, etc. Its aim is to offer information for the reader. Hence, there is the
imaginative literature that seeks to arouse the reader′s thoughts and feelings. The writers of
this type express their ideas, attitudes, and feelings. “Imaginative literature according to many
men of letters and writers has fuller and deeper sense than informative literature.” (ibid.). This
kind of literature appeals the imagination rather than the reason of readers. In addition, he
communicates his thoughts, feelings, and attitudes towards life (ibid.).

6
 Some people′s point of view about literature is that it is not true and does not
represent real life. Unlike science and history which both of them deal with life and they are
true. To be clear, truth and fact are two different conceptions, “a fact is a statement of a thing
done or exciting”, while a truth “is something people agree on as being so.” (ibid: 6). These
two elements may be seen clearly in literature in which “an author will cause his characters to
behave in a certain way because he accepts truths and knows facts and he is always concerned
about how truth and fact are related to each other. A literary man‟s task is to choose fact from
the real world and present a truth in a picture that makes us think and feel because good
literature must seem real. People who are always connected with literature will recognize the
good literature, and what keeps it alive is this kind of people (ibid.).

Although there is no fixed definition of literature, there is a definition to what is

called the good literature (Laga, 2003). The good literature is the one that lives a lot because it
gives pleasure, expresses thoughts and feelings (Risdianto, 2011). Writing literature is not
only ideas and inspirations of the writer, but it needs technical skills accompanied by creative
imagination. There is another main characteristic of a good literature which is originality; a
novelist has already seen and made idea or old story from different perspectives and he will
give it a new light; for example Shakespeare‟s plays were not new rather original ones. In the
sense that Hamlet and Macbeth were real historical characters, Othello also invented by an
Italian writer in a previous time. His use of these characters in a new fascinating light, in other
words Shakespeare′s magical touch makes his works truly original belongs to the good
literature (ibid.).

Most of good literature is traditional and original at the same time.

Originality then consists not of inventing new themes, but of seeing
and expressing the old unalterable themes in a new way, with the
author′s own words and with his own ways. (Risdianto, 2011: 7)

The central themes of literature are life, truth, justice, and love. For this reason, the
writer′s part is to discover new ways to represent them. Thus literature has a moral purpose
(ibid.).

Good literature reflects to readers some feelings, ideas or thoughts that recognized to
be true and a part of reader′s experience:

7
 We see truths, facts or realities in life of human kind or those things in
various objects in certain times. We may expect those writers to
moralize, criticize, or advise our life directly or (mostly) indirectly so
that we may lead a good or better behaviour of life (Risdianto, 2011:
8).

1.2 Literary Theory

Literary theory means the ideas and methods that are used in the practical reading of
literature (Brewton, 2012); also they can be described as tools. Literary theories refer to a
variety of approaches to reading, interpreting, and analysing a text (Tyson, 2012). Literary
theory formulates the relationship between author and the work, develops the significance of
class, race, and gender of a literary study, and offers a varying approach of understanding the
role of historical context in the interpretation of the literary text (Brewton, 2012).

Literary theories are a set of lenses through which readers can see texts (Mesick,
2012). There is nothing to say that one of them is better than the other, but there is more
appropriate one to read a text. Literary theory is the study of the principles which inform how
literature makes sense of the world and, in turn, how critics make sense of literary works
(ibid.).

1.2.1 Orientation of Literary Theories

Most of the literary theories can be put into four main classifications which are
imitative, pragmatic, expressive and affective (Abrams, 1971). Theories of literature are also
called orientation of criticism. They are based on four main elements: the work, the audience,
the universe, and the artist. “That is, a critic tends to derive from one of these terms, his
principal categories for defining, classifying, and analyzing a work of art, as well as the major
criteria by which he judges its value.” (ibid: 6).

1.2.1.1 Imitative Theory

This theory called mimetic theory; it holds the notion that art is an imitation of
something (ibid: 9). Imitative theory can be defined as “ a literary theory which evaluates a
work of art in terms of imitation/copy which is the most ancient way of judging any work of
art in relation to reality.”(Adepeju, 2011) i.e. these texts are imitations of an artist existence.
The word imitation derived from the Greek word Mimesis, and it has been a centered term

8
since Plato. Mimetic theory also considered as the earlier way to judge any work of art in
relation to reality (Risdianto, 2011).

Aristotle (384-322 B.C) is a Greek figure, and behind the term mimesis he produced
also the term “re-creation” or “re-presentation” (Drabble, 2000). He said that “art is superior
to history because where history sticks to the facts, art refines nature, showing what should
have happened in a world free from accident.”, and regards the artist as an imitator of
imitations not hundred percents; artist recreated reality and presented it for readers in a way
they can see its essence clearly (Abram, 1971).

The imitative theory includes the tendency that art in addition to pleasure gives
knowledge, insights into the nature of reality. It has three categories. The first category is the
mortal ideas. The second category is the world of sense. The third category is the reflection.
These three categories are the basic points of mimetic analysis (Abram, 1971).

1.2.1.2 Pragmatic Theory

Pragmatic theory have the notion of a literary work on its effect to an audience, and a
literary work is regarded as a rhetorical product (ibid.). It focuses on author‟s creativity in
creating a beauty on the reader‟s mind. “a „pragmatic theory‟, since it looks at work of art
chiefly as a means to an end, an instrument for getting done, and tends to judge its value
according to its success in achieving that aim.” (ibid: 15). Therefore this notion proves
whether a literary work succeeds in delivering its aim or not. “Poesy therefore [said Sidney] is
an art of imitation, for so Aristotle termed it in the word Mimesis, that is to say a representing,
counterfeiting, or figuring forth to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture: with this end, to
teach and delight.” (ibid: 14), it means that arts are means of pleasing and teaching. “ „right
poets‟ are those who imitate both to delight and teach, and delight to move men to take that
goodness in hand, which without delight they would fly as form of a stranger.” (ibid: 15).
Another characteristic of the pragmatic theories is delivering a moral object “In order „to
teach and delight, poets imitate not „what is, hath been, or shall be, but only “what may be,
and should,‟ so that the very objects of imitation become such as to guarantee the moral
purpose.” (ibid.).

1. 2.1.3 Expressive Theory

According to Wordsworth‟s Lyrical Ballads the definition of poetry is that “the

spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” (ibid: 21). The expressive theory was born on the
9
Romantic Movement and it was seen as a means of portraying the individual emotions and
feelings of the artist which he intended to express. Expressive theory is appropriated with
biographical criticism, romanticism, and Freudian analysis. It defines a literary work as “The
overflow, utterance, or projection of the thought and feelings of the author.” (ibid.). Also, it
defines poetry as “the imaginative process which modifies and synthesizes the images,
thoughts, and feelings of the poet.” (ibid: 22).

1.2.1.4 Objective Theory

All the previous described types of theories; Mimetic, pragmatic and expressive, deal
with the work itself. As long as the objective theories focus on texts without the influence of
the writer's around world on his reader (Adepeju, 2011). There is a fourth procedure is “the
„objective orientation‟, which on principle regards the work of art in isolation from all these
external points of reference, analyzes it as a self-sufficient entity.” (Abrams, 1971). Any
attempt to find the relationship between the author and the work is called‟ Intentional fallacy‟,
and any attempt to find the reader response is called „Affective Fallacy‟. Its aim is to make the
interpretation of reading objective as much as possible in which the reader is supposed to
study a literary text using ”close reading”; to pay attention to syntax, images and structure in
the text (ibid.). This reading is not for giving any meaning. Objectivity in this theory refers
not to allow any external or internal interference that occur during the process of reading
(ibid.).

1.2.2. Marxism Theory

The German Ideology was the first announcement of Karl Marx's way of thinking, in
which he introduced the concept of Dialectical materialism “[...] the means of production
controls a society's institutions and beliefs, and contended that history is progressing towards
the eventual triumph of communism.” (Dobie, 2011: 80). Marx believed that communism is
the best solution to get the potentialities as human. He also discovered that he shared the same
principles and views with the political economist Friedrich Engels. They collaborated to
explain their common principles of communism and later expounded it in the Communist
Manifesto in 1848 (Saalamann, 2010). They argued that a revolution could happen by the
workers as a result of the class struggle to overturn the capitalists (ibid.). Another claim is that
workers have the right to take control of the economic production, and they have to call for a
balanced distribution of the private property by the government. Marx argued that history is
determined by economic conditions and argued an end to private ownership of public utilities,
10
transportation and the means of production. Despite the variations and the additions that have
occurred in the century that followed, on the whole, Marx's writings still provide the theory of
economics, sociology, history, politics, and a religious belief called Marxism (Dobie, 2011:
80).

Marxist theory can be seen in many sides, as a historical philosophy, an economic

doctrine, and the basic explanation of how societies change. This theory took two aspects as
its basics: materialism and class struggle (ibid.).

Materialism, according to Marx is the economic products that reach the level of
controlling the human thinking. In other words, the determination of men‟s being is not their
consciousness, but in contrary their social being that determines their consciousness (Raman
& Peter, 2005: 82). Basing on this theory‟s aspect and how Marxists explained it. The ones
who control the economic are the ones who control the political fields, and this leads to
control the leading ideas in that area (Dobie, 2011). Materialism shows that no human is able
to get his own ideas, but his ideas are the effect of the others around him, as Karl Marx said:
“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e. the class which is the
ruling material force of the society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.” (Marx &
Engels: 1845).

The claim that “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class
struggle” is taken as the second base for the Marxism theory. Due to the capitalism situation
in the societies, the classes are divided into the exploiters; who control the means of the
production, and the ones who have to sell their labor to the owners to earn a living
(Saalamann, 2010).

In the capitalist society, those who own the production; economic and political sides,
are the ones which own the society by their wealth, power, and privilege. Besides, this class
(bourgeoisie) usually represents a low percentage comparing to the working class, or as Marx
refers to as “proletariat” (ibid.).

1.2.2.1 Marxist Literary Criticism

Although Marxism theory was not designed as a literary theory, its principles are
applied in literature (Dobie, 2011). Any piece of writing is a reflection of the writer‟s
personality, for Marxism is a way to view beyond the letters of the literary work. The reader,

11
using the Marxist theory, will cross the edge of words, pass the adventure of the story and
pass the imagination there, to have an insight to the real world of the meant setting (ibid).

Through using this theory, the society of the writer will be reflected on his writings.
His ideology, social classes and political conflicts in that society will clearly appear in the
work. Thus, three main points can be mentioned here (Pogreba, 2005).

The first point is that a “text cannot be separated from its cultural situation”, and any
analysis of a literary work using the Marxist theory will be related directly to the culture
mentioned in the story (ibid: 3). It means that the detailed aspects which occur in the story are
in a real detailed aspects in the society which the writer summoned the events from them.

Secondly, even if the writer tried hard to isolate himself from his society, his writings
will include even a hint of it. Karl Marx himself believed that the philosophers have only
interpreted the world through their creativity and our business as readers is to change it
(Dobie, 2011). Many writers; like Charles Dickens, Jonathan Swift, William Blake, their
works are critiqued as Marxist. Those writers who tried to solve their social problems,
especially the ones which deal with the economic struggles can be developed to political ones,
in addition to the “capitalism” of their society (ibid.).

Last and not least is that, through using the “capitalism” idea explained by Marx, the
literary works are an easy way to expose the classes‟ conflict within the authors‟ society
(Dobie, 2011). Terry Eagleton, an English literary critic and cultural theorist, defines Marxist
literary criticism as the following:

Marxist criticism is not a merely ‘sociology of literature’, concerned

with how novels get published and whether they mention the working
class. Its aim is to explain the literary work more fully; and this means
a sensitive attention to its forms, styles, and meanings. But it also
means grasping those forms, styles and meanings as the product of a
particular history (Eagleton, 1976: 3).

The form helps in understanding the language used of that “particular history”, the
style in comprehending the writer‟s point of view and “ideology”, and the meaning is an easy
way to get the reality behind the used words in the literary work (ibid.).

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1.2.2.2 Reflectionism

Reflectionism is a notion produced by Georg Lukács (1885-1971), a Hungarian critic

who is considered as the first major Marxist critic (ibid: 65). It refers to the assumption that a
text reflects the society that has produced it. According to Oxford dictionary, it is belief based
on the metaphor of the mirror in which the goal of art, as Hamlet observes, „to hold a mirror
up to nature‟. The critic who practices reflectionism for the purpose of discovering how
characters and their relationships typify and reveal class conflict, the socioeconomic system,
or the politics of a time and place is called a reflectionist (Alberecht, 1954). Lukács′ use of the
term reflection is a main characteristic of his work (Raman & Peter, 2005: 87). The Reflection
theory appreciates the function of literature; ″ the essential function of the reflection theory
was to "explain" in social and historical rather than individual terms the quality and greatness
of literature, as well as its content, style, and forms." (Albrecht, 1954: 425). Lukács assumed
that a reflection is more or less concrete, and the reader should be aware that the work is not
reality by itself but it can be said that it is „a special form of reflecting reality‟. In other words
literature is a fictitious works holds realities between its lines (Raman & Peter, 2005: 87).
Lukács rejected naturalism of the recent European novel and returned to the old realistic view
that “ the novel reflects reality, not by rendering its mere surface appearance but by giving us
„a truer, more complete, more vivid and more dynamic reflection of reality‟.” (ibid: 87). He
also insures that literature can provide its readers with a plenty of information:

At one time or another literature has been thought to reflect

economics, family relationship, climate and landscapes, attitudes,
morals, races, social classes, political events, wars, religion, and
many other detailed aspects of environment and social life
(Alberecht, 2012: 426).

Because reading literary text can give the reader the social life of the time, and class
is one dimension of the social structure. The class division can be identified through this
literary text.

1.3 Social Class

1.3.1 Definition of Social Class

Class is a complex term, there are various ways in which it can be defined (Cody,
2002). It can be defined as a broad group in society having common economic, cultural, or
13
political status. A social class also refers to one unit of different society that possess certain
value, prestige, activity, property and their ethics of social intercourse (Cohan, 1983). In other
words, social class is a group of people whom share some characteristics like life style,
education, or position. Different social classes can be distinguished by inequalities like power,
authority, wealth, living conditions, religion, education, language, work, and culture (Cody,
2002).

1.3.2 Theories of Social Class

Social class‟s definition is one of the most important discussed concepts that
sociologists handle. There are two major sociologists who are most important in the
discussions about class; they are Karl Marx and Max Weber (Wright, 2003).

1.3.2.1 Social Class According to Karl Marx

In the mid-nineteenth century, Marx defined class as follow:

Persons share important characteristics in the system of economic

production. This condition depended on individual status with the
economic process, whether owned and controlled the means of
production or worked for someone else (Kimball & Mack, 1965).

Marx believed that all societies split into two groups which are the capitalists, who
owned the tools of production, and the proletariat, who works. Later on two classes had
increased. The first one includes occupational leaders, professionals, managers,
administrators, scientists, and engineers, and the second one includes: teachers and nurses.
These two sub- classes create the middle class what makes them separated from the working
class is their income and power over the other employees (Dobie, 2011: 82).

In other words, Marx claims that “Those who own and control the means of
production (which involves ownership of such things as land, factories, financial institutions
and the like): this is the Capitalist class (Bourgeoisie), and adds that “Those who own nothing
but their ability to sell their labour power (that is, their ability to work) in return for wages:
this is the working class (Proletariat) (Wright, 2003: 8).

14
1.3.2.2 Social Class According to Max Weber

Another socialist, Max Weber, a German theorist was influenced by Marx‟s works.
Weber‟s theory of class was similar to Marx‟s. Max defined class as “Any group of people
who share a similar position in an economic market” (Livesey, 2003). He claims that class is
a number of people that have in common a specific part of their life chances. He adds that
these parts are represented by economic interests in the possession of goods and chances for
income. Also, it represented under the conditions of labor market (Wright, 2003). Weber
classed businessmen and professionals as a part of elite. He believed that class structure is
more complex than two distinct classes, and he identified four main strata which were the
upper class “A propertied Class”, the middle class which composed from two sub classes; The
Upper Middle Class “The white Collar Professionals” and The Lower Middle class “The Petty
Bourgeoisie”, and The lower class “ Working Class”. (ibid: 5).

Conclusion

Definition of literature has been always a topic of great discussion. Literature has no
universal definition. It can be classified according to whether it is fiction or non-fiction,
whether it is poetry or prose, or according to genres; novel, short story, and drama. A literary
work inherits the characteristics of its historical period.

A single literary text can be seen from different perspectives. In sociology literature
can be used as a source of information about society. The good literature is the one that holds
reality between its lines. The creators of literary works tend to present a certain reality
covered with imagination for the sake of providing information in the world of fiction.

A literary theory is an attempt to read, understand and analyse a work of literature. It

gives the reader the opportunity to read a text with a variety of lenses. From a Marxist
perspective a text reveals many things about different social classes in a society and their
struggle between these social classes. Class structure is one of the most important concepts in
sociology. As mentioned previously, Marx and Weber theories on social class were similar in
many ways.

The Victorian age is characterised by several characteristics like inequalities between

social classes. Therefore, the next chapter will give a general overview about that crucial
period in the British history.

15
 Chapter Two
The Victorian Age (1832-1901)
Chapter Two

Introduction

It is known that historians divided the history of England into a series of periods.
From the ancient Britain to the modern age, these periods are spans of time in which each one
of them has its own particular characteristics whether in the social life, literature, religion, or
other aspects. Thus, the Victorian era is one of these periods which have its own
characteristics. Social characteristics like class division and child labor which were the
themes of the period‟s literature specially the novels.

2.1. The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain

During the early years of the 18th century, many changes happened in several parts of
the world and took place in the life and work of people (Taibi, 2008). These changes are the
results of the development of industrialization, and the term Industrial Revolution refers to
them and to the period. The definition of this term is quite difficult, it can be defined as the
rapid industrial growth that began in England during the middle of the eighteenth century and
then spread over the next 50 years to many other countries, including the United States.
According to the dictionary definition, “The revolution depended on devices such as the
steam engine, which were invented at a rapidly increasing rate during the period.” It is also
defined as the rapid growth of certain sectors of manufacturing industry, in particular cotton
and iron, from the later eighteen to the early nineteenth century (Rahan, 2011).

Historians have disagreed on the Industrial revolution real significance while most of
them agree that it was “a great turning point in the history of the world. It has a great role in
changing the economic and social status in the Western world from a largely rural and
agricultural society to an urban and industrial one (Taibi, 2008: 11).

2.1.1. Factors Led to the Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was not the result of one single. Rather different factors
come together. A wide range of innovations characterized the period of industrial revolution.
The first one is the industrial production which happened when Richard Arkwright developed
machines powered by water. These machines produced more goods and more quickly for the
growing population (Paul, 2013). The second factor happened when Charles Townshend
developed fertilizers and crop rotation systems which meant that more food could be
produced by fewer people. This meant that more people could use the new transport network

17
to work in the new city factories run by people like Arkwright and still be feed (ibid.). The
third one is Iron Smelting which happened when Abraham Darby found a successful way of
extracting iron from rocks by using process involving coals. This massively increased the
production of iron, which could be used to produce steam engines, agricultural and industrial
machinery, railways and bridges (ibid.). The fourth one is the Coal Extraction; it is when
Humphrey Davy invented a new type of safety lamp which enabled coal miners to work
longer hours in deeper pits without fear of explosions. This led to an increase in the
production of coals, which was needed to power steam machines and for smelting iron (ibid.).
The fifth factor is the Railways; when Isambard Kingdom Brunel improved the transport
network immensely by building railways and bridges for the new steam trains. This means
that fuel and people could be moved into the new industrial factories and goods could be
carried away.” The last one is the Steam Power, it was when James Watt produced effective
steam engines powered by coal that made industrial and agricultural machines run more
quickly and which led to the development of steam trains (ibid.).

2.1.2. Social Development after the Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution changed many things for the better on one hand. The new
factories made many people better fed, clothed, and housed, and because reading instructions,
taking measurement and interpreting drawings and plans requires educated workers this help
the working class to have education. On the other hand, many people become victims of
oppression; it made children of six and eight years old worked in the mills and mines, and
women worked in the factories (Taibi, 2008).

The middle and working classes were the creators of the wealth, they were getting
little benefit for themselves and they were without any political power. Whereas members of
the upper class were the leaders and kept the political power in the country (Mikanová, 2005).

The time between 1750 and 1914 witnessed transformation of Britain from an
agriculture to an urban country. The consequences of the Industrial Revolution reflected in the
Victorian society (Harris, 1994).

2.2. The Victorian Era

Victorian era refers to the reign of the Queen Victoria (1837-1901). Queen Victoria
was the first English monarch to see her name given to the period of her reign whilst still
living (McDowall, 2006). Historians distinguish Early Victorian (1830-48), Mid-Victorian

18
(1848-70), and Late Victorian (1870-1907). Under Queen Victoria, Britain transformed by the
Industrial Revolution become the world‟s leading empire (Taibi, 2008).

The Victorian Age was characterised by rapid change in many domains, medical
scientific and technological knowledge, also changes in population growth and location.
Those changes affected the country from many sides:

[…] an age that began with a confidence and optimism leading to

economic boom and prosperity eventually gave way to uncertainty
and doubt regarding Britain’s place in the world. Today we associate
the nineteenth century with the Protestant work ethic, family values,
religious observation and institutional faith (Taibi, 2008: 11).

All these characteristics recorded by historians and literary men of the era
through their informative and imaginative literary works.

2.2.1. Family Life

Family life was unhappy for the three different social classes during the Victorian
period. The regular parental beating for children and the cruel conditions for boys at boarding
school are sings of unhappy life “[…] the family in this period as large in size, wide-ranging
in kinship network, close-knit in emotional ties, and patriarchal in moral authority.” (Harris,
1994: 61). The conditions of life were totally different between the members of different
social classes like the concerns of mothers, “Working-class mothers began to aspire after
babies with ample chins and chubby cheeks, just when middle-class mothers were beginning
to worry about excess fat.” (ibid: 88). Children also were treated in different ways “Whereas
in the 1860s working-class children had been precipitated into adulthood much earlier than
middle-class children.” (ibid.) These features may reveal the differences in life between
classes in society.

Despite the fact that the good living conditions of the upper and middle class
families, they were unstable too “Over the period as a whole, upper- and middle-class families
became less cohesive and less self- contained than they had been in the earlier Victorian
period.” (ibid: 92).

19
2.2.2 Working Conditions

The workers in the Victorian period were members from the lower class. The
conditions of working were bad. The following quote will show these inappropriate
conditions:

Millions of workers lived in slums or in vacated old decaying upper class

houses. The occupants of slums had no sanitation, no water supply, no
paved streets, no schools, no law or order, no decent food or new clothing.
Many now had to walk miles to mill or factory work, […] Their hours of
work began at 5.30.a.m.and were never less than ten. The brutal degrading
conditions were so awful that drunkenness and opium. (Taibi, 2008: 60).

With the different purposes of working, the middle class working conditions are different
too:

And among the middle classes reputedly the locus classics of the work
ideal puritanical addiction to work increasingly competed with
expending private incomes fears about loss of status, the opening up
of high society, and increasing opportunities for fashion, travel,
cultivation, and pleasure (Harris, 1994: 124).

Mill Taine in 1870 claimed that “most Englishmen worked not as an end in itself but
as a mean of purchasing entertainment and comfort.” ( Quoted in Harris, 1994: 125). Not
working or not being obliged to work were “pride” in the Victorian culture especially between
the people who belong to the upper class (ibid.).

This variety in work between the three social classes is another category in revealing
the class division during the Victorian era:

Such variety may imply that a holly adequate history of work can be
written, if at all, only at the level of the individual form, factory, home,
office, or workshop. Yet the very centrality of work as a pillar of
social, economic, and moral life makes it imperative to fit the
conditions and experience of work into some wider social concern
(Harris, 1994: 124-125).

20
2.2.3 Child Labor

The lower class‟s families, in the early and mid-Victorian period, would not able to
support and to feed themselves if the children had not been employed. The following quote
will show this:

[…] but for the vast majority of children ‘childhood’, if it existed at

all, was effectively over by the age of 10. Beyond that age, and often
earlier, children within the lower classes were required to contribute
to family income or to maintain themselves. Even children who did not
earn a wage worked long hours in the service of their parents and
others— at home, in the streets, in fields, and in factories (Harris,
1994: 48).

In some towns of Britain, rarely anybody above the age of four was not working. The
children of the working class were forced to work. An example is Dickens‟s character David
in his novel David Copperfield. Who worked at age of 12 in Blacking Factory. Many children
worked 16 hours per -day under harsh conditions, and many of the more fortunate ones found
employment as apprentices in respectable trades or as general servants (Mikanova, 2005).

2.3 Social Classes in the Victorian Society

Industrial Revolution led to many effects. A major one is the social class change that
appeared in England society as a result of economic reasons. As what has been mentioned in
the first chapter that there was three new social class structures in England during the
Victorian era. These three distinct classes are the Church and aristocracy, the middle class,
and the working class (Taibi, 2008).

2.3.1 The Class Division

The class division during the Victorian era appeared in many situations:

The class division on the railway was echoed throughout the land. In
church the higher classes sat at the front in reserved pews and the
lower classes at the back. In dress, the wives of wealthy industrialists
were clothed in conspicuous finery as they were the social
representatives of their soberly dressed husband (ibid: 61).

21
 As stated in chapter one that society is divided into three social classes. Then,
according to historians the Victorian society was divided into the upper and lower classes.
Later on a third class emerged which is the middle class.

2.3.1.1 The Upper Class

The upper class is a group of the owners of natural resources and factories (Marx,
19). Their power comes from employment of labors and wealth. This group controlled the
political power of the country. In his novel, In the Year of Jubilee (1894), George Gissing
tells the story of a group of a young upper and lower-middle-class people at the time of Queen
Victoria‟s role, and describes the upper class manner of living in very high living conditions.
(Drabble, 2000). Also, it was called the aristocracy. This class included the Church and
nobility which had a great power and wealth. It consisted of about two percent of the
population and included the royal family, lords, the clergy, great officers of state, and those
above the degree of baronet. The members of this class were born in nobility and they owned
the majority of the land. They were privileged and avoided taxes. Aristocrats made a lot of
money, the wealthiest ones of them made about 30,000 pounds per year. They put aside 150
pounds per year to their sons and 100 pounds per year to their daughters from the day they
were born (Cody, 2013).

2.3.1.2 Middle Class

2.3.1.2.1 The Rise of the Middle Class

During the second half of the eighteenth century in Britain, there had been a small
class of merchants, trades and small farmers. This small class was “the middle class”, and it
had increased with the rise of industrialists and factory owners. Then, in the nineteenth
century grew quickly. Industrialists of this class were successful and self-made men who
came from poor beginnings (McDowall, 2006).

The middle class made up of factory owners, bankers, shopkeepers, merchants,

lawyers, engineers, businessmen, traders, teachers, and other professionals. In other words; it
included everyone between the working class and the upper class. New roles were defined for
middle class men and women; middle class men went for work in business, while their
women stayed home and cared for the family needs. Middle class men did not get married
until the age of 27 or 30 because of the importance of being financially stable (ibid.). This
class made up about fifteen percent of the population. A man‟s status depends on his values,
education, and community position. Though, the clergyman of the Church of England might

22
have had very small incomes, he was still considered gentleman. One of the main
characteristics of this class is that the idealization of family life and togetherness because the
opportunity of its members in being together. The middle class children were raised by
servants, and they had the chance to go to local grammar schools or went to private schools.
Their education became increasingly important. People of this class shared set of values and
ideas. They valued hard work, sexual morality, and individual responsibility (ibid.).

2.3.1.3 The Lower Class / Workers

The lower class was divided into two sections: the working class (laborers), and the
poor. It contained men, women, and children performing many types of labor, including
factory work, seam stressing, and chimney sweeping, mining, and other jobs. It consisted of
about eighty- five percent of the population but owned less than fifty percent of the land.
People of this class had to endure a large burden of taxes, and made up about twenty five
pounds per year (Harris, 1994).

People from this class earned just enough to stay alive. At their twenties, working
men were at their peak physically, so that they were most highly paid. After the working man
and woman married the family would be quit poor. For the reason that upon arrival of
children and woman could not continue to work a twelve to fourteen hour every day. As the
man grew older, he earns so much less because his physical conditions.

2.4 The Victorian Literature

As stated before, Britain after the Industrial revolution changed in many fields. The
discoveries of science have particular effects upon the literature of the age. Victorian
literature is the literature produced during the reign of Queen Victoria and corresponded to the
Victorian era. It forms a transition in the history of literature between the romantic period
literature and the very different literature of the 20 th century. It produced great poets, and it
was remarkable of its excellence prose. All the works of the great writers of the period share
general characteristics. The major characteristic is that Victorian literature tends to come
closer to the daily life which reflects the problems and interests exist in reality. It becomes a
powerful mean for human progress, socially and economical (Mcllvain, 2012).

The Victorian literature seems to deviate from the common role of literature; art for
art sake, and asserts its moral purpose. Idealism is often a main characteristic of the Victorian
literature, this era is considered an age of doubt and pessimism. Though the age is
characterised by practical and materialistic, most of the writers exalt a purely ideal life. In

23
other words, it is an idealistic age that tackles great ideals like truth, justice, love, and
brotherhood these ideals were the main themes of poets, essayists, and novelists of the age.
The great part in change was for the novel. The novel has been described as the leader form of
literature during the 19th century:

The novel continued to thrive through this time. Its importance to the
era could easily be compared to the importance of the plays of
Shakespeare for the Elizabethans (Taibi, 2008: 62).

Poetry thrived too, but not as much as prose. It did with the works of the Brownings,
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the verse of Lewis Carroll and Rudyard Kipling (ibid.).

2.4.1 The Victorian Realism

Realism was defined as “ A literary term so widely used as to be more or less

meaningless expect when used in contradistinction to some other movement, e.g. naturalism,
expressionism, surrealism (Drabble, 2000). Harvey‟s original definition was “a loosely used
term meaning truth to the observe fact of life (especially when they are gloomy).” (ibid.). Its
more precise definition in literature is that:

In the arts, ‘realism referred to the belief that reality inheres in

present fact end that new doctrines of the physical world are
independent of mind or spirit, ‘ a description of facing up to things as
they really are and not as we imagine or would like them to be
(Louis, 2006: 29).

In other words, realism tackles the slogan of “Things as They Are” (ibid.), and
always insists that art always aims at the representation of reality. The French realist school
stressed sincerity as opposed to the liberty announced by the romantics. The realist school
insisted on accurate documentation, sociological insight, and the scientific nature of the
material world, and insisted on the avoidance of poetic diction, idealization, and exaggeration.
It becomes more concerned with everyday life subjects, preferably from lower class life
(Drabble, 2000). In England, many writers like Moore and Arnold Bennett imitated the
French realists. From the time of Defoe, the English novel had had its own varying senses and
contexts, and thus the term is applied to English literature (ibid.). Charles Dickens was
regarded as the representative figure of the nineteenth century realism (Humpherys, 2008).

The realism literature writers in the Victorian era got the inspiration for their subjects
from common and real existed places. They insisted on the description of the lifestyle and
24
setting of the middle and lower class citizens. Thus, the setting became very important in
establishing the realistic nature of characters and location (Hollington, 2008).

2.4.2. The Victorian Novel

Victorian novels tend to be idealized portraits of difficult lives in which hard work,
perseverance, love and luck win out in the end; virtue would be rewarded and wrongdoers are
suitably punished (Mcllvain, 2012). They tended to be of an improving nature with a central
moral lesson at heart. While this formula was the basis for much of earlier Victorian fiction,
the situation became more complex as the century progressed (ibid.).

The 19th century saw the novel become the leading form of literature in English. The
works by pre-Victorian writers such as Jane Austen and Walter Scott had perfected both
closely-observed social satire and adventure stories. Popular works opened a market for the
novel amongst a reading public. The 19th century is often regarded as a high point in British
literature as well as in other countries such as France, the United States and Russia. Books,
and novels in particular, became ubiquitous, and the "Victorian novelist" created legacy
works with continuing appeal (ibid.).

The Victorian novel as mentioned before was the dominant form in the Victorian
literature; the following quote could show that:

Prior to the last war, the whole literature of the Victorian period
languished in the depth of critical disfavor, and the novels were
considered if possible even more contemptible than any of the other
literary genre (Bloom, 2004: 47).

It seeks to represent a large and comprehensive social world, with a variety of

classes. In which its major themes always handle the idea of the place of individual in society
or the aspiration of the hero or heroine for love or social position:

The Victorian novelists had given emotional coloring to everything

they wrote about[…] their complicated plots had often included
melodramatic suspense or farcical absurdity; many of them were
committed to overt social purpose (ibid: 48).

For the first time, women novelists were major writers: Emily, Anne, and Charlotte
Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, and George Eliot. The novel was a principle form of entertainment.
Also, it was more preferred than the other forms of writing:

25
 The novel was a form of entertainment, and well-brought up children
were taught to read novels before luncheon. An educated Victorian
reader idled away an evening with a novel when he did not feel equal
to reading something important history for example or history (Bloom.
2004).

2.4.1.2. Victorian Novelists

Bloom said that “without exception the Victorian novelists were masters of the art of
telling a story.” (Bloom, 2004: 173). With their brilliant style in writing and telling stories
from life they made the novel in the top of the other literary genres (ibid.).

Significant Victorian novelists like: Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), the Brontë sisters
(Emily (1818-1848), Anne and Charlotte (1816-1855), Christina Rossetti (1830-1894),
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), Joseph Conrad, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Wilkie
Collins, Charles Dickens (1812-1870), Benjamin Disraeli, George Eliot (1819-1880), George
Meredith, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Gissing, Richard Jefferies, Thomas Hardy (1840-1928),
A. E. Housman (1859-1936), Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), Bram
Stoker, Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), Philip Meadows Taylor, Alfred Lord
Tennyson (1809-1892), William Thackeray (1811-1863), Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Lewis
Carroll (1832-1898) and H. G. Wells (1866-1946) (Taibi, 2008).

2.4.1.3. The Victorian Novel Style

Victorian novel was easier to be read and understood by simple people whom the
protagonist of the novel most of the time one of them, and they shared the same opinions and
values with the writer. The hero is always a representative of moral earnestness, and the
conflict between good and evil like in Dickens‟s Oliver Twist and William Thackeray‟s
Vanity Fair (Louis, 2006). The plot of novels was very long and complicated; the writer
presented not only the adventures of the main characters, but also those of secondary ones for
the sake of giving a remarked impression of reality:

They [the Victorian novelists] had expressed their own attitudes and
sympathies without constraint; they had written in individual styles
that sometimes burst into extravagance of oratory or luxuriance of
poetry; their complicated plots had often included melodramatic
suspense (Bloom, 2004: 48).

26
 The setting was mainly the same where the readers lived. In general the novel was
the mirror which reflected society (Hollington, 2008).

Conclusion

When it comes to describing Great Britain in the Victorian period, words like
Industrial Revolution, reform, and change would come to mind. Many changes appeared in
many fields as a result of the Industrial Revolution. The class division and the gap between
the social classes was a remarkable element in the Victorian society. It leads to make most the
writers and particularly novelists during the era to consider it their major themes. Thus, the
real setting and life events were a main characteristic of the Victorian novel like Dickens‟
Hard Times.

27
 Chapter Three
The Analysis of Social Classes’ Differences in
Charles Dickens’ Hard Times
Chapter Three

Introduction

This chapter is devoted to identify the social classes‟ differences in Dickens‟s Hard
Times. The novel involves historical event which is the Industrial Revolution. Considering that
Hard Times is a fictional piece of writing (Drabble, 2000). It may be more realistic than fictional.
According to the theme of this study it is necessary to give a hint about Charles Dickens as a
witness of the events which happened during the period, and then as the writer of the work. His
witnesses and experiences for social realities were his source of inspiration. In Hard Times,
Dickens tackles the mechanised British society, which is embodied in his fictional setting and
characters. Where working people, poor and children were living under oppressive life. In Hard
Times Dickens has constructed an almost entirely mechanised world people, ideals and
environment. Within the setting and characters Dickens pictures the Victorian society and the
differences between its classes through dimensions like language, education, and living
conditions.

3.1 Charles Dickens as a Victorian Citizen

One of the most famous English biographies and Dickens‟s friend, said in his footnote
that “years after he [Dickens] was famous he would cross the street to avoid the smell from an
altogether different blacking factory, with its reminder of what he once was.” (Fletcher, 2002).
Charles Dickens, (Charles John Huffhm) considered as the most popular English novelist, and
the greatest of the Victorian period. He was born at Mile End Terrace, Landport, on the outskirts
of Portsmouth, on 7th February 1812, to John and Elizabeth Dickens (Louis, 2006).

Charles was the second among eight children. His father‟s job forced him and his family
to move frequently. Dickens lived few years in Ghatham, there he received some education. His
rapid progress led the schoolmaster William Giles to give him special attention. He spent happy
time in Chatham; this time was followed by a period of an intensive misery that deeply affected
Dickens. The family moved again to London in 1822, their financial affairs ended by
imprisoning the father because of debt. Charles had to leave school and worked at blacking
factory in London. All these memories of this painful period inspired much of his fiction, notably
the early chapters of David Copperfield (ibid.).

Between 1824 and1827, Dickens studied at Wellington Academy, London, and later in
1827, at Mr. Dawson‟s school. From 1827 to 1828, he worked as a law office clerk, and then as a
shorthand reporter at Doctor‟s Commons (ibid.).

29
 At the age of twenty-two, Dickens married Catherine Hogarth. With her, he had 10
children, and he was a good father for his children. In 1858, after twenty years of marriage he
and his wife separated (ibid.). Dickens is known for his Hard Times (1854), Oliver Twist (1837),
Bleak House (1852), A Tale of Cities (1859), David Copperfield (1850) and others.

From 1858 till his death, Dickens travelled throughout England and the United States,
lecturing and reading from his works. He died in 1870 (ibid.).

3.2 Charles Dickens’s Hard Times

A novel written by Dickens, published 1854, it is regarded as a product of Victorian

time (Humpherys, 2006). Hard Times is divided into three separate books, the first book is
“Sowing” and the second book is “Reaping”. The two books exemplify the biblical concept of
“whatsoever a man sowed, that shall he also reap”. The third book entitled “Garnering” (ibid.).
Hard times is one of Dickens‟ strong social critiques which suggest numerous social
developments and ideas, and it portrays his philosophy on values, where all men are equal.
Dickens‟ prime principle was that a better workplace creates better working conditions; therefore
lives of the workers will be better. It also contains a language of satire through the use of humor
and caricature to criticises socialism, industrialization, and urbanization. Hard Times was
regarded by critics as a historical work; since the great part of its events hold realities, neglecting
its artistic and imaginative side (Ilhem, 2006).

3.2.1 Themes

In Hard Times Dickens presented several themes like the theme of power, education, wealth,
family and ethics.

The theme of Power. Power comes in several forms in Hard Times. On the one hand,
the numerous factory workers represent a tremendous force, both in terms of their ability to
operate machinery and produce goods, and in their ability to band together to form a union and
go on strike. On the other hand, in their collective form they are viewed by their employers as
disposable and almost non-human. This is made evident in the term "Hands,"
which reduces them to a single, non-thinking, non-emotional body part. The workers are
patronized by the government and by ostensibly charitable organizations that study, analyze, and
criticize their drinking, church-going, parenting, and any other quantifiable behavior.

The theme of Wealth, Hard Times definitely has a specific view on wealth. In this novel,
the gulf between rich and poor is vast and cannot be crossed, despite the myth created by the

30
rich that the poor can lift themselves up by their bootstraps. Those who rise do so at the expense
of others, and even then their progress is slow, painful, and does not reach much higher than
where they started – and anyone who says otherwise is telling self-serving lies. With wealth
come options and opportunities for all sorts of abnormal and deviant behavior . With wealth also
comes the privilege of escaping from paying for transgressions, and the chance to start life over
fresh.

The theme of Education. There is a strong case made in Hard Times that education is not
simply the classroom experience of memorizing facts. The novel expresses the view that having
an emotional component to our education is crucial. It's also shown in the novel that this kind of
learning can happen at any time in life. Learning about the way other people live is the ground
work for valuing them as fellow creatures; learning about them only in terms of their
productivity is a recipe for class warfare. If this proper groundwork is not laid, then a perverted
kind of learning can take its place, full of cynicism and misanthropy.

The theme of Family, Hard Times expresses the opinion that even an ad hoc, somewhat
messily organized family is the best kind of community structure, as long as there's love present.
This is shown in the descriptions of Sleary's circus, easily the warmest and most caring of the
novel's many groups. In this novel, when families are close emotionally, they provide amoral
education that centers on self-sacrifice and altruism. The novel seems to be saying that this is the
key to bettering society. On the other hand, when families are ruled by cold logic, they lose
emotional connection, and society as a whole becomes totally self-serving.

The theme of Morality and Ethics, in Hard Times, the key moral attributes that
the villains lack are empathy, generosity, and altruism. For Dickens, these are the foundation of
human relationships. There is no getting around them with any other quality, however positive.
Those who possess these qualities are much better equipped to handle the world, however
hostile it may be. Those who lack these basic ways to connect to other people are doomed to a
lonely and miserable existence.

3.2.2 Characters

Characters are classified into major and minor characters. The major ones are the most
important and the big role in the story. Beside them, the writers need other characters to make his
story more convincing and lifelike.

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3.2.2.1 The Major Characters

The major characters in Charles Dickens‟s novel, Hard Times, are important,
fascinating, and occasionally humorous types of personalities that most people know. With his
characters, Dickens is able to reveal the follies of humanity in a compelling novel.

Thomas Gradgrind: A wealthy, retired merchant in Coketown, England; he later becomes a

Member of Parliament. Mr.Gradgrind espouses a philosophy of rationalism, self-interest, and a
cold, hard fact. He describes himself as an “ eminently practical “ man, and he tries to raise his
children Louisa, Tom, Jane, Adam Smith, Malhus to be equally practical by forbidding the
development of their imaginations and emotions.

Louisa: Gradgrind‟s daughter, later Bounderby‟s wife. Confused by her coldhearted upbringing,
Louisa feels disconnected from her emotions and alienated from other people. While she vaguely
recognizes that her father‟s system of education has deprived her childhood of all joy, Louisa
cannot actively invoke her emotions or connect with others. Thus she married Bounderby to
please her father, even though she does not love her husband. Indeed, the only person she loves
completely is her brother Tom.

Thomas Gradgrind, Jr: Gradgrind‟s eldest son and an apprentice at Bounderby‟s bank, who is
generally called Tom. He appreciates his sister‟s affection and loves money even more than he
loves Louisa.

Josiah Bounderby: Gradgrind‟s friend and later Louisa‟s husband. Bounderby claims to be a
self-, made man and boastfully describes being abandoned by his mother by his mother as young
boy. From his childhood poverty he has risen to become a banker and factory owner in
Caketown, known by everyone for his wealth and power. His true upbringing, by caring and
devoted parents, indicates that his social mobility is a boas and calls into question the whole
notion of social mobility in nineteenth- century England.

Cecelia Jupe: The daughter of a clown in Sleary‟s circus. Sissy is taken in by Gradgrind when
her father disappears. Sissy serves as a foil, or contrast, to Louisa: while Sissy is imaginative and
compassionate, Louisa is a rational and, for the most part, unfeeling. Sissy embodies the
Victorian femininity that counterbalances mechanization and industry. Though Sissy‟s
interaction with her, Louisa is able to explore her more sensitive, feminine sides.

Mrs. Sparsit: Bounderby‟s housekeeper, who goes to live at the bank apartments when
Bounderby marries Louisa. Once a member of the aristocratic elite, Mrs. Sparsit fell on hard
times after the collapse of her marriage. A selfish manipulative, dishonest woman, Mrs. Sparsit
32
cherishes secrete hopes of ruining Bounderby‟s marriage so that she can marry him herself. Mrs.
Sparsit‟s aristocratic background is emphasized by the narrator‟s frequent allusions to her
“Roman” and “Coriolanian” appearance.

Stephen Blackpool: A hand in Bounderby‟s factory. Stephen loves Rachael but is unable to
marry her because he is already married, albeit to a horrible, drunken woman. A man of great
honesty, compassion, and integrity, Stephen maintains his moral ideals even when he is shunned
by his fellow workers and fired by Bounderby. Stephen‟s values are similar to those endorsed by
the narrator.

James Harthouse: A sophisticated and manipulative young London gentleman who comes to
Coketown searching for a new form of amusement. He quickly becomes attracted to Louisa and
resolves to reduce her.

3.2.2.2 Minor Characters

Dickens uses many minor characters in which they serve to complement the major characters
and help move the plot events forward. They are:

Bitzer: Pupil in Gradgrind‟s school.

Mrs. Gradgrind: The wife of Thomas Gradgrind

Rachael: A working woman, in love with Stephen.

Jane Gradgrind: The youngest child of Mr. Gradgrind.

Mr. Sleary: The manager of the circus.

Mrs. Pegler: Old woman, Bounderby‟s mother.

Mr. M’Choakumchild: A teacher in Gradgrind‟s school.

Slackbridge: The trade union‟s agitator.

Signor: Sissy‟s father, working in the circus.

Josephine Sleary: A young woman and the daughter of Mr. Sleary.

3.2.3 The Plot Summary

Mr. Gradgrind, an educator in Coketwon, an industrial city. He is a man of facts

believes only in facts and statistics. He is a father of two children, Louisa and Tom. The story
events started in Mr. Gradgrind‟s own school where he insisted on the importance of facts
addressing his pupils, “NOW, what I want is, facts” (Hard Times: 6). One of his pupils, Cecilia

33
 Jupe is the only one that is not filled with facts, while another pupil, Bitzer is a model of Mr.
Gradgrind‟s principles that he wants to achieve (Hard Times: 12). Bitzer shows that in his
definition of a horse (Hard Times: 8). In Mr. Gradgrind‟s way home, he discovers that Louisa
and Tom are in the circus. He blames them, and he ascribes that to the influence of Sissy, who
was a performer in the circus. Therefore, Mr. Gradgrind tells Sissy‟s father Mr. Jupe that his
daughter could no longer attend his school. He hears that Mr. Jupe left the town, and he will
never come back again. Hence, Mr. Gradgrind offers to receive Sissy in his home if she accepts
his condition which was to cut her relationship off from the circus; Sissy agrees with hope to
meet her father again. Mr. Josiah Bounderby, Mr. Gradgrind‟s friend, was against this decision
and warned him about the results. Mr. Bounderby is fond of Louisa, although he is earlier than
her. Louisa accepts to get marry with him to please her father, and to serve her brother, Tom,
benefit which was to work at Bounderby‟s bank. Mr. Stephen Blackpool, a worker in Mr.
Bounderby‟s factory, who received him in his house, at his mill. Stephen wants to divorce his
alcoholic wife. He has been married for nineteen years and he is unhappy. Stephen falls in love
with Rachael and he wants to marry her. Bounderby refuses the idea of divorce and tells him
that the process costs money which Stephen can never offer. Mr. Bounderby offers to Mrs.
Sparsit, his housekeeper, to move to reside in his bank just after his marriage with Louisa.

James Harthouse, a rich man comes to Coketown to visit Bounderby and tries to
seduce his wife, Louisa. Later on, on the story Mrs. Pegler appears and tells everybody that he
his Mr. Bounderby‟s mother and his real story. The story events change to become detective:
where Tom robs money from the bank and the suspect is the poor Stephen. At that time,
Stephen decides to leave Coketown, then the truth and the real thief, Tom Gradrind, discovered.
At the same time the relationship between Louisa and Mr. Harthouse becomes much closer, but
Louisa decides to escape to her father‟s house. The end of the story, presents the future of the
main characters. Bitzer rising in business, Bounderby dying in the street. Mr. Gradgrind realizes
the importance of other values beside facts which are faith, hope and love, Tom dying, Sissy
marrying and living in a happy and family, and Louisa, remaining unmarried, her relationship
with Sissy and her children remains.

3.4 Portraying Society through the Setting

Dickens‟ striking power of description was remarkable. London, where most of his
novels are located (Fletcher, 2002). In Hard Times, Dickens vividly portrays an industrial
polluted town. He gives a town the name of „Coketown‟, which is the main part of the story.
Dickens describes it in a gloomy way as:

34
 It was a town of red brick or of brick that would have been red and black
like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall
chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves
forever and ever, and never got uncoiled (Hard Times: 22).

Coketown is also described as an “ugly citadel, where nature was strongly bricked out
as killing airs and gases were bricked in” (Hard Times: 54), and shows that the town is the worst
place that people live in. Hard Times was written in 1854 when Dickens visited one town of
England, which he represented and based his novel and gave it the name of Coketown. The name
implies the many factories there in driven by coke. Coketown environment is heavily
industrialized “Time went on like its own machinery…, it brought its varying seasons even into
that wilderness of smoke and brick” (Hard Times: 75). The ugly atmosphere of Coketown
changed when Louisa and Rachael went in a walking tour outside its boundaries: “Engines and
pits mouths, and lean old horses that had worn the circle of their daily labor into the ground,
were alike quiet; wheels had ceased for a short space to turn; and the great wheel of earth seemed
to revolve without the shocks and noises of another time” (Hard Times: 213)

Life in Coketown according to Dickens was like unhealthy life with sadness and
hopelessness:

It [Coketown] contained several large streets all very like one another,
and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people
equally like one another, who all went in and out of the same hours with
the same work, and to whom everyday was the same as yesterday and
tomorrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next (Hard
Times: 22).

Coketown in the novel represents the place where the characters live and work, and the
mechanical perspective of an industrial society. The reader with Dickens‟s descriptions feels like
part of this setting.

3.5 Portraying Social Classes’ Differences through Characters

Each writer has his own special way of characterization. As Madam. Saadoun said in
the lecture that Kim Kay‟ ideas of characterization show the importance of the writer‟s creation
of his characters within the literary work. In which Kim Kay claims that:

Character traits fall into three main categories: physical, identity, and
social/moral. Physical traits refer to the character’s appearance, not
35
 only their looks, but also their style of clothing and body language. A
character’s identity is made up of personality traits, such as habits and
quirks, vices, psychological/emotional problems, and behavior. Their
identity also includes external things, such as occupation, education, and
hobbies. Social/moral traits define how a character interacts with others
and his or her code of ethics.

Dickens has a special use of characterization in which they may seem real for the
reader, as T.S Eliot remarked that “Dickens‟s characters are real because there is no one like
them.” (Quoted in Bloom, 2004: 7). Not only can the description of Coketown reveal the picture
of society, but also the precise description of each character. Dickens characterization portrays
the different social classes in an Industrial town, in which the three characters; James Harthouse,
Josiah Bounderby and Stephen Blackpool, are representatives of the upper, middle and working
social classes. Dickens in Hard Times tries to reveal the differences between the three social
classes, their education, work, living conditions, and even the dialects in the novel can reveal a
lot about the classes‟ differences in the Victorian society (Ilhem, 2012).

3.5.1.1 The Upper Class/ Bourgeoisie

It is also called bourgeoisie. The main character, Mr. James Harthouse is the
representative of this class. Mr. James Harthouse a rich man, an aristocratic member of society
visited Coketown because he becomes bored with life, and he is looking for something new.
Who dickens describes him as follow:

Now, this gentleman had a younger brother of still better appearance

Than himself, who had tried life as a Coronet of Dragoons, and found it
a bore; and had afterwards tried it in train of an English minister
abroad, and found it a bore; and they had then gone yachting about the
world, and got bored everywhere (Hard Times: 102).

From the time of his arrival to Coketown, Mr. Harthouse‟s only goal was seducing
Louisa and finding his lost love. James Harthouse, a young politician without heart or principles,
comes to Coketown, takes advantage of Louisa‟s unhappy life with Bounderby and attempts to
seduce her.” (Drabble, 2000). Mr. Harthouse bored because he was from a rich family and ten
hours of work to feed oneself was not his concern or a part of his regime. There is no much
description of the living conditions in the upper class‟s family. There is little evidence from the
late nineteenth century to support the family picture of the bourgeois family at the light of the

36
Industrial Revolution as a secure emotional refuge from the physical and moral horrors of an
encircling market economy.” (Harris, 1994).

3.5.1.2 The Middle Class:

Mr. Josiah Bounderby is a representative of the middle class. He is “a rich man: a

banker, a merchant and a manufacturer,” Dickens goes on to personify him as:

A big, loud man, with a stare and a metallic laugh. A man made out of a
coarse material, […] A man with a great puffed head and forehead,
swelled veins in his temples, and such as trained skin to his face that it
seemed to hold his eyes open and lift his eyebrows up. A man with a
pervading appearance on him of being inflated like a balloon, and ready
to start. A man who could never sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made
man. A man who was always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-
trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty. A man
who was the Bully of humility (Hard Times: 16).

Mr. Bounderby leads everybody to believe that he worked hard to reach the position of
a wealthy man and a factory owner, and claims that each member from the middle class has
worked very hard to get the honor of being where he is. In any conversation involves his
presence he speaks about his sad childhood and how his mother has abandoned him and left him
to his drunken grandmother to attract peoples‟ sympathy “I hadn‟t a shoe to my foot. As to a
stocking, I didn‟t know such a thing by name. I passed the day in a ditch, and the night in a
pigsty. That‟s the way I spent my tenth birthday […]” (Hard Times: 16). To the point when his
mother, Mrs. Pegler appears and uncovers the reality that she did not abandon him. He has no
interest in helping and speaking with people whose class is lower than him as he says to Mr. Jupe
“[…] we are the people who know the value of time and you are the kind of people who don‟t
know the value of time.” (Hard Times: 28), he also keeps mocking and laughing at the people of
Circus speech‟s also his bad manner when Mr. Blackpool asked for his help. He never makes
any consideration to other people‟s feelings because he always sees them as workers that can be
replaced easily any time.

3.5.1.3 The Working Class/ Proletariat

Mr. Stephen Blackpool is a representative of the working class. A worker in

Bounderby‟s factory and lives a hard life with his drunk wife. People called him old Stephen
although he is forty years of age. Dickens describes him as:

37
 A rather stooping man, with a knitted brow, a pondering expression of
face, and a hard-looking head sufficiently capacious, on which his iron-
grey hair lay long and thin, old Stephen might have passed for a
particularly intelligent man in his condition (Hard Times: 54).

Although he always knows that what he wants is something difficult and comes to be
impossible, he is so pessimistic character and always honest. He fell in love with Rachael who is
also from the same class and works at the same factory with him. Getting married with Rachael
was his only dream which was something impossible just like Bounderby tells him when he
asked for divorce.

Stephen‟s dying prayer can be considered as the target message that Dickens intended to
convey through Hard Times:

In my pain an trouble, lookin up yonder,-wi′ it shinin′ on me- I ha′ seen

more clear, and ha′ made it my dying prayer that aw th′ world may on′y
coom toogether more, an get a better unnerstan′ in o′one another, than
when I were in′t my own weak seln (Hard Times: 219).

3.6 Dimensions in Representing Differences between Classes

Dickens was interested in social affairs and problems. The difference between the three
social classes; upper, middle, and working class, is obvious through several categories and
dimensions in the novel Hard Times.

3.6.1 Language

The language used or dialects can define people‟s level of education or social class:
“Social class differences interpret cultural contrast in patterning and speech.”(Ilhem, 2012).
Dickens uses a variety of English forms as a technique to show the difference between the high
and working classes: “In Hard Times the social linguistic aspect is fundamental for the novel and
its satire. Some features in the text can identify the characters identity as stated by Ingham:

Since the narrators not only look but listen and notice features of speech
which they read off as a form of body language. These include aspects of
voice quality, enunciation, sentence structure, vocabulary, and other
more nebulous effects. If these were comprehensively recorded, they
would indicate the speaker’s idiolects: those features of speaker’s

38
 utterance that enable a skilled listener to recognize the identity of their
interlocutor or at least their age or gender or class (Ingham, 2008).

Ingham also adds that the language beyond representing the personalities of characters
goes deeper to represent moral and social class through a dialect (ibid.). Through some
extractions from Hard Times all this can be identified in which the representatives of the middle
class Mr. Bounderby, Mr. Gradgrind, and the upper class Mr. Harthouse using a highly standard
English. Here are some quotes: “In the name of wonder, idleness, and folly!′ said Mr Gradgrind,
leading each away by a hand;′ “My mother left me to my grandmother,′ said Mr Bounderby;
′and, according to my remembrance, my grandmother was the wickedest and the worst old
woman that ever lived.” (Hard Times: 17) example from Mr. Harthouse‟s speech: “Mr.
Bounderby , I assure you I am entirely and completely of your way of thinking.” (Hard Times:
103). While the Representative of the working class language can be realized through Mr.
Blackpool ′s speeches in the novel: “′I′d leer not coom to′t, sir; but sin you put th′question-an not
want′n t′ be ill-manner′n- I′ll answer. I ha passed a promess.′” (Hard Times: 121).
Dickens was conscious that each people‟s class likes to read about themselves with their
dialect to fulfill the meaning. This is the portrait of Stephen Blackpool in Hard Times. (Ilhem,
2012)

Dickens was good to stimulate the readers’ compassion in sharing or at

least visualizing the working class life and in presenting a culture of
industrialism he targets at exploring social class differences (ibid: 81).

3.6.2 Education

The representative of the upper class Mr. Harthhouse is educated, as the following
quotes show: “So, he went in. He coached himself with a blue book or two.” (Hard Times: 103)
“Can I have seen him abroad? Or at some public school perhaps?”(Hard Times: 107). Also, the
representative of the middle class; Mr. Bounderby was educated, as the following quote can
show that : “Tell Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, of your district schools and your whole kettle-
of-fish of schools; and Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, tells you plainly, all right, all correct- he
hadn‟t such advantages- but let us have hard-headed, solid-fisted people- the education that made
him won‟t do for everybody, he knows well- such and such his education was.”(Hard Times:
18). Whereas the representative; Mr. Stephen of the working class is not able to read, from the
following quote this can be shown: “Not the least eager of the eyes assembles, were the eyes of

39
those who could not read. These people, as they listened to the friendly voice that read
aloud.”(Hard Times: 198) Dickens is talking about the factory bells and Stephen as one of them.

3.6.3 Living Conditions

The difference between social classes also can be identified through the living
conditions of the representatives of each social class. It can be shown from the food Bounderby
and Stephen consume: Bounderby is “at lunch with a chop and sherry.” (Hard Times: 60). Mrs.
Sparsit; Bounderby‟s house keeper considers mutton as “simple” (Hard Times: 151). Most of the
time Mr. Bounderby mentioned in Hard Times he is in the dining room around his everyday
majestic table “[…] Mrs. Sparsit and her prize; and the whole body made a disorderly irruption
into Mr. Bounderby‟s dining-room.” (Hard Times: 208). Stephen eats a loaf of bread which is
sometimes crusty with fresh butter “He lighted a candle, set out his little tea-board, got hot water
from below, and brought in small portions of tea and sugar, a loaf, and some butter, from the
nearest shop.”(Hard Times: 128).

In addition to the difference in the houses where each one of them lives, likewise
Stephen is living in: “[…] who was asleep in her little room, and went up stairs into his lodging.
[…] it was a room, not unacquainted with black ladder under various tenants; but as neat, at
present, as such a room could be.”(Hard Times: 57). He is living in one room, Mr. Harthouse and
Mr. Bounderby are living in a house contains several rooms: “they went down to the drawing
room” (Hard Times: 83), “[Louisa] Her own private sitting- room” (Hard Times: 92), Mr.
Harthouse has room just for dressing: “ The next day was too bright a morning for sleep, and
James Harthouse rose early, and sat in the pleasant bay window of his dressing-room, smoking
the rare tobacco that had wholesome an influence on his young friend.” (Hard Times: 146). The
working class's living conditions are very low; the following quote can show this:

[…] , and the whole an unnatural family, shouldering, and trampling,

and pressing one another to death; in the last close nook of this great
exhausted receiver, where the chimneys, for want of air to make a
draught, were built in an immense variety of stunted and crooked shapes
as though every house put out a sign of the kind of people who might be
expected to be born in it (Hard Times: 54).

Conclusion

Through the characters‟ actions, the setting, and the characterization in Hard Times,
Dickens portrays certain social facts of an industrial society and tries to picture a social reality.

40
He leads the reader to hope for social and economic reform that may give birth to social justice
and equality. Dickens creates a tale that reflects the issues of the Victorian era including the class
division that existed during this era.

41
General Conclusion
 General Conclusion

Literary text reflects society and deals with its phenomena, morals and values. Marxism
as a literary theory holds this idea and deals with a literary text as the mirror of society that is
created by writers from that society during period of time. After the analysis of Charles
Dickens‟s Hard Times by the Marxism literary theory, it can be said that social class differences‟
in Dickens‟s novel reflect the real conditions in England during the Victorian period.

Through the analytic reading of the novel Hard Times and using the Marxist literary
theory, it can be realized that the description of the setting and the characters seem real. They are
reflections of some realities, in which Coketwon reflects an industrial town and the characters
are representatives of social classes during that time. The events of the novel reflect the
conditions and the hard times in the British society after the Industrial Revolution.

Critics said that Coketown represents one of the towns in England which existed in
reality under the name of Preston (Philpotts, 2008: 210). Dickens described it in a gloomy way
just as the real picture of a polluted town with a mechanical atmosphere (ibid.).

The upper class is represented through the character Mr. James Harthouse in the
Victorian society. The way of characterization that Dickens uses provides the reader with the
way people from this class lives just as the aimless life of Mr. Harthouse, and what their
concerns are. Mr. Harthouse was looking for new thing to get rid of his poured life, thus he tries
to seduce the married character Mrs. Louisa.

Mr. Josiah Bounderby is represented as a man belongs to the middle class, in addition to
other characters like; Thomas Gradgrind, Louisa Gradgrind, and Mrs. Sparsit. He tries to
convince people that he worked hard to reach the position of a wealthy factory owner, and he can
be a strong proof of the belief that obstacles like poverty and lack of education never stop
anybody from reaching a point, but the hard work. Dickens used caricature to describe many
details concerning Mr. Bounderby.

Mr. Stephen Blackpool is a representative of the working class. He was a worker in

Bounderby‟s factory; he was suffering from the hard life conditions. He cannot divorce his wife
to marry the woman he is in love with, because divorce costs him money which he cannot offer.

At the end, the Marxists way of analyzing a text which based on how authors reflect
realities through characters, settings, or other aspects of the literary text lead to the conclusion
that Dickens tries to picture the real life by representing the thoughts, feelings, and ways of

43
living of characters from a variety of social classes. Thus, the literary text Hard Times reflects
the class division and the political events from the Victorian Society.

44
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Mikanova, H. (2005). The Reflection of Social Differences in the Works of Charles Dickens,
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Glossary
 Glossary

- Bourgeoisie : The owners of the means of production and distribution, as opposed to the
proletariat (Abrams, 1999)

- Characterization: is the process in which writers reveals and describes the personality of his
characters (Cambridge, 2008).

- Characters: are the persons represented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted
by the reader as being endowed with particle moral, intellectual, and emotional qualities
(Abrams, 1999)

- Class Struggle: in Marxism, a containing fight between the capitalist class and the working
class for political and economic reasons (Cambridge, 2008).

- Capitalist: someone who has a large amount of money invested (ibid.).

-Dialectical Materialism: The theory that history develops neither in a random fashion nor in a
linear one but instead as struggle between contradictions that ultimately find resolution in a
synthesis of the two sides (Dobie, 2011)

- Materialism: the belief that only physical matters exist and the spiritual world does not
(Cambridge, 2008).

- Proletariat: the class of people who do unskilled jobs in industry and own little or no property
(ibid.)

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 Résumé
Ce travail sert á étudier les classes de la société anglaise pendent la période de la reine
Victoria en se basant sur le roman de l‟ auteur Anglais Charles Dickens qui s‟intitule « Hard
Times ». l‟objectif de cette étude est de montrer les différences et les distinctions entre les trois
classes sociales á cette époque qui sont: la bourgeois, la moyenne classe et la petite
bourgeoisie. Aussi, elle vise de mettre l‟accent sur la théorie marxiste celle qui déclare que la
littérature est la miroir de la société. Afin d‟avoir des résultats, on fait comparer et analyser les
situations et les événements sociaux comme les citent Charles Dickens avec celles qui sont
réelles et illustrées par l‟histoire pendent cette période. Le but extrême de ce travail est de
déduire que les productions littéraires reflètent la réalité des sociétés. Il se compose de trois
chapitres : le premier chapitre présente quelques tendances et théories sur la littérature et les
classes sociales. Le deuxième chapitre aborde une vie générale concernant les réalités et les
situations qui existent pendent la période Victorienne. La troisième chapitre c‟est une partie de
pratique de ce travail ou on fait analyser sur le roman de Charles Dickens Hard Times.

Mots Clés: classes de la société, différences, littérature, la théorie marxiste, Charles

Dickens, Hard Times.

‫الملخص‬
‫ح‬٠‫ا‬ٚ‫ْ اسرٕادا ٌش‬ٛ‫ اٌذساسح سرى‬.‫ا‬٠‫س‬ٛ‫ىر‬١‫ خالي زمثح اٌٍّىح ف‬ٞ‫ز‬١ٍ‫ اٌّدرّغ االٔد‬ٟ‫ح ف‬١‫ٌح ٌّٕالشح اٌطثم‬ٚ‫ ِسا‬ٛ٘ ‫٘زا اٌثسث‬
‫ح‬١‫ٓ اٌطثماخ االخرّاػ‬١‫ٕاخ ت‬٠‫ اٌرثا‬ٚ ‫ق‬ٚ‫ر اٌفش‬١‫ض‬ٛ‫ ٘زٖ اٌذساسح ٌر‬ٟ‫ذأذ‬ٚ .‫ة‬١‫ػص‬
‫ج‬ ‫لاخ‬ٚ‫ىٕز أ‬٠‫ ذشاسٌز د‬ٞ‫ز‬١ٍ‫اٌىاذة االٔد‬
‫ش اٌالػذاٌح‬ٙ‫ اٌطثمح اٌؼاٍِح وّا سرظ‬ٚ , ٝ‫سط‬ٌٛ‫ اٌطثمح ا‬, ‫ح‬١‫لشاط‬ٛ‫سط‬٠‫ اٌطثمح االس‬ٟ٘ٚ ‫دج آٔزان‬ٛ‫خ‬ِٛ ‫ وأد‬ٟ‫اٌثالثح اٌر‬
ٟ‫اٌر‬ٚ ‫ح‬١‫ح اٌّاسوس‬٠‫ زمائك إٌظش‬ٜ‫ إزذ‬ٍٝ‫ء ػ‬ٛ‫ط اٌض‬١ٍ‫ضا ٌرس‬٠‫ذف ٘زٖ اٌذساسح أ‬ٙ‫ذ‬ٚ .ٞ‫ز‬١ٍ‫ اٌّدرّغ االٔد‬ٟ‫ح ف‬١‫االخرّاػ‬
‫ضاع‬ٚ‫ك ٔرائح ٘زٖ اٌذساسح ذماسْ األ‬١‫ذف ذسم‬ٙ‫ت‬ٚ .‫ح‬٠‫زٖ إٌظش‬ٌٙ ‫ اسرٕادا‬.‫ح‬١‫مح االخرّاػ‬١‫ذصشذ أْ األدب ِشآج ٌٍسم‬
ْٛ‫ى‬١‫ وً ٘زا س‬.‫خ ػٓ اٌسمثح‬٠‫ روش٘ا اٌراس‬ٟ‫ح اٌر‬١‫م‬١‫ضاع اٌسم‬ٚ‫ح ِغ ذٍه األ‬٠‫ا‬ٚ‫ اٌش‬ٟ‫ىٕز ف‬٠‫زوش٘ا ذشاسٌز د‬٠ ‫ح وّا‬١‫االخرّاػ‬
ٓ‫مذَ أساء ػ‬٠ ‫ي‬ٚ‫ اٌفصً األ‬: ‫ي‬ٛ‫ ثالثح فص‬ٌٝ‫ ٘زا اٌثسث ِمسُ إ‬.‫الغ اٌّدرّؼاخ‬ٚ ‫ح ذؼىس‬١‫٘ذفٗ اسرٕراج أْ اٌىراتاخ األدت‬
َ‫مذ‬٠ ٛٙ‫ ف‬ٟٔ‫ أِا اٌفصً اٌثا‬.‫ح‬١‫ ذخص اٌطثماخ االخرّاػ‬ٟ‫اخ اٌر‬٠‫إٌظش‬ٚ ‫ساء‬٢‫مذَ تؼض ا‬٠ ‫ح ٌٗ وّا‬٠‫اخ إٌمذ‬٠‫ػٓ إٌظش‬ٚ ‫األدب‬
‫ح اٌّثاششج‬١‫م‬١‫ّثً اٌذساسح اٌرطث‬٠ ٛٙ‫ش ف‬١‫ األخ‬ٚ ‫أِا اٌفصً اٌثاٌث‬ٚ .‫ح‬٠‫س‬ٛ‫ىر‬١‫ خالي اٌسمثح اٌف‬ٞ‫ز‬١ٍ‫زمائك ِٓ اٌّدرّغ االٔد‬
.‫ىٕز‬٠‫ ذشاسٌز د‬ٟ‫ائ‬ٚ‫ثح ٌٍش‬١‫لاخ ػص‬ٚ‫ح أ‬٠‫ا‬ٚ‫ً اٌش‬١ٍ‫رٌه ِٓ خالي ذس‬ٚ

‫ة‬١‫ػص‬
‫ج‬ ‫لاخ‬ٚ‫ أ‬٬‫ىٕز‬٠‫ ذشاسٌز د‬٬‫ح‬١‫ح اٌّاسوس‬٠‫ إٌظش‬٬‫ األدب‬,‫ق‬ٚ‫ اٌفش‬٬‫ح‬١‫ اٌطثمح االخرّاػ‬:‫الكلمات المفتاحية‬

52